JULIA ISIDREZ, MARIA LIRA MARQUES

The exhibition is an opportunity for the Brazilian public to have contact with the dialog between the works of these two visual artists who have a lot in common, despite the regional and cultural particularities that demarcate their productions, presenting the affinities that are perceptible between their distant contexts. Both artists work from ancient indigenous or Afro-indigenous traditions, creating works that escape the traditional program of art in the West. They also act as community leaders, contributing to the socio-cultural reality of their respective places of origin. They are, therefore, voices from a perspective of decolonial thinking, in the sense of recognizing the full validity of their practices in today’s art scene and challenging paradigms that have long been present in the official art circuit. Bringing together Isidrez’s ceramics and Lira’s paintings and some ceramics (some of the works presented are new), the exhibition offers an approach to the possible parallels between their contexts of origin.

Julia Isidrez learned ceramics from her mother, Juana Marta Rodas (1925-2013), following a matrilineal tradition of Guarani ceramics dating back to pre-Columbian times. Based on the techniques of her ancestors, the pieces Isidrez sculpts transcend their function with an expressive vocabulary of fantastic animal figures from the local context, the town of Itá, near Asunción and Lake Ypacaraí. Exhibiting with her mother from an early age, the artist’s work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions in Latin America, North America, Europe, and Asia. Last year, her works were exhibited alongside those of her mother at the 60th edition of the Venice Biennale, curated by Adriano Pedrosa. And, from the end of March this year, they will also be present at the 14th edition of the Mercosul Biennial, curated by Raphael Fonseca.

Born and based in Araçuaí, in the Jequitinhonha Valley, Maria Lira also developed an early interest in working with clay when she watched her mother, Odília Borges Nogueira, making nativity scenes. Since the 1980s, the artist has concentrated her practice on the series Meus bichos do sertão, paintings with mineral pigment of imaginary animals that inhabit her inventive mind. She held her first exhibition in 1975 at Sesc Pompeia and has since exhibited at various national and international institutions in Belgium, Holland, Denmark, France, and the United States. At the beginning of 2024, the Tomie Ohtake Institute presented Roda dos bichos, the first institutional solo show dedicated to the artist’s work, curated by Paulo Miyada and assistant curator Sabrina Fontenele. Also in the same year, the artist was present with new works at the 38th Panorama of Brazilian Art, curated by Germano Dushá and Thiago de Paula Souza and assistant curator Ariana Nuala. In addition, Gomide&Co, in partnership with Act. Editora launched her first monograph, Maria Lira, organized by Rodrigo Moura.